Blunt Tools
by happyhooligan2001
Summary: Michelle still loves Tony and hopes to someday reunite with him. It appears his soul is lost but God sometimes uses blunt tools in his work and no one is more blunt than Chloe O'Brian.
1. The Ghost

**Blunt Tools**

**Chapter One**

**The Ghost**

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**ADX Supermax Federal Prison**

**Florence Colorado**

The correctional officers called him "The Ghost." A handsome, dark haired man with a sullen expression. He was considered the most dangerous man in a prison designed for dangerous men. Former Special Forces, former CTU agent, ruthless terrorist. He could probably kill a man with his bare hands without even thinking about it. Not that he was a problem inmate. He followed all the staff's orders without hesitation. But he never said a word, never changed his expression. He completely ignored every other inmate in the facility. The inmates here were locked in their 10 X 15 foot cells 23 hours a day with one hour a day set aside for exercise outside in a small wire enclosure. "The Ghost" never took that opportunity. He never left his cell unless absolutely necessary. His daily routine never altered. An exercise routine that would kill a horse followed by a shower, then sitting in his cell staring at the door for the rest of the day. His cell contained no reading material nor did he ask for any. He paused only for meals then sat and stared. He had a TV/radio in his cell but he never switched it on. He just sat there staring.

**Somewhere outside of time**

The young boy knelt in the lush green grass and gently touched the surface of the pond. The image of the sullen man disappeared into a blur of ripples. "Will father ever join us?"

A beautiful woman with long flowing brown hair knelt next to him and put her arm around the boy's shoulders. "We can pray that he will but ultimately that is a choice that he will have to make himself."

The boy stared into his mother's soft brown eyes. "But he suffers so much!"

"Your father has sinned greatly and has caused much suffering. It is only justice that he must suffer in return. But suffering is like fire. It can destroy but it can also cleanse and purify."

"So he's getting better?" The boy's voice had a touch of hope to it.

The woman paused. In this place there were no lies. "No, he's getting worse. His heart is full of bitterness and hate. The path he is following leads only deeper into the darkness."

"But we'll lose him forever!" The boy wailed.

The woman's eyes narrowed and her jaw set with determination. "Not without a fight! Love is stronger than hate. Good is stronger than evil. Our love can rescue your father but we also need help." She pointed to the pond. "There are people on Earth who watch over and protect others. One of them was my friend."

The pond now showed a brown haired woman in her late thirties pushing a shopping cart through a grocery store. She stopped to stare at a stack of cantaloupes as if deciding which ones were best. The toddler sitting in the cart's babyseat grabbed her necklace and pulled on it. "Leggo of mommy's necklace! Leggo!" She gently pried his pudgy fist open. "You've got quite a grip there Scotty," she muttered under her breath. She then selected four cantaloupes and placed them in the cart.

"She's not a saintly woman, she's far from it. But she's a good woman. God often uses blunt and broken tools to do his work and she may be your father's only chance for salvation."

**Los Angeles, California**

Chloe O'Brian opened her eyes and tried to focus in the darkness of the bedroom. She could hear Morris snoring softly next to her, feel the warmth of his body. She just had another one of those weird dreams. Something about Michelle and some kid. They wanted her to do something but what? The dream was already fading from her memory. Oh well, it's just a dream. She rolled over on her side and looked at the alarm. Almost time to get up.

Morris pulled uncomfortably at his collar and loosened his tie. It was damned warm in here. Chloe wasn't exactly the best Christian in the world. She rarely said grace at meals and he'd never once seen her crack a Bible open. But every Sunday she insisted that the whole family get dressed up and go to church. And not to the nice new church conveniently located four blocks from home. The one with the comfortable padded pews and robust air conditioning system. Nooo! They had to drive halfway across Los Angeles to this elderly church with its rock hard pews and a cranky AC installed some time during the Johnson administration. The priest, Father Petrowsky, was an old friend of hers, helped her get through a rough spot a few years ago. As Father Petrowsky's sermon droned on he noticed her nodding off. Scotty was sitting next to her quietly playing with a plastic tyrannosaur that apparently had the power of flight. A quick poke to her ribs caused her head to snap up and earned him an angry glare. Morris just grinned and leaned back in the hard pew.

After mass Chloe leaned over to Morris. "Take Scotty to the playroom, I need to talk to Father Mike, alone."

"What about?"

"Things that are none of your business."

Morris gave an exasperated sigh but picked up his young son and headed down the hallway. Chloe waited for the congregation to leave before approaching the elderly priest. "I need to talk to you, about a friend of mine. Actually an ex-friend. His name's Tony." Chloe wrung her hands. She seemed embarrassed. "I've been having some weird dreams about him. Like I'm supposed to help him."

The bald, bearded priest smiled. "So why's he your ex-friend and not your friend?"

"Murder, treason, basically he's scum-of-the-earth. He's doing life without parole."

"Sometimes it's the scum-of-the-earth who need friends the most. He was your friend. Was he a good man?"

Chloe nodded. "Yeah, he was a pretty good guy, but his wife was murdered. She was carrying his child. It drove him right over the edge."

"I'd like you to see something." Father Mike led her down the hall. "If he was once a good man he may still be again. Whenever there's life, there's hope."

"So what about my dreams?"

"There are two possibilities. The first one is that Heaven and Hell are battling over Tony's immortal soul. You have been chosen by God to be his divine messenger and to try to save him from eternal damnation."

Chloe snorted in derision.

"The second possibility is that in spite of all the horrible things he's done and no matter how much you dislike him at the moment, you still consider Tony to be your friend. You believe in God, Jesus, the devil, Heaven and Hell or you wouldn't keep coming here every week. You are concerned about the fate of his immortal soul and want to save him. This concern has entered your subconscious through your dreams. Of course it may be a combination of the two."

They entered a room used for Sunday school. It had some toys and a round table spotted with drops of dried glue, glitter, and small bits of construction paper. Father Mike pointed at a picture on the wall. "This is what I wanted to show you. What do you see?"

"An old, cheap print of Jesus knocking at a door. I've seen this picture a million times, everyone has. It's as common as dirt."

"You've seen it a million times but have you really looked at it? Look closer. Use that million dollar brain of yours."

Chloe looked at the picture for several seconds. "There's no latch on the door."

"No there isn't. The door represents the human heart. In this case it's your friend Tony. Jesus can't open the door. It can only be opened from the inside."

"Well if Jesus can't get in what makes you think I can?"

"You can't. I believe you have to meet with Tony and persuade him to open the door himself. That's what your dreams are about."

Chloe crossed her arms. "What if I really don't want to see the son of a bitch." Her voice had a tone of irritation.

"Nobody can make you do anything against your will. Not even God. You're an intelligent woman and you're a good woman. I feel you can make the choice to do what is best."

"Yeah, whatever. I've got to go get Morris and Scotty. See you next week." Chloe left the room.

On the drive home, Morris noticed Chloe seemed rather quiet. She just sat there staring out the window. After about half an hour she finally spoke. "I'm going to Colorado tomorrow."

Morris shook his head. "We can't go to Colorado tomorrow. There's no way I can get off work on such short notice."

"I didn't say 'we', I said 'I'. I'm going alone. You stay here and take care of Scotty."

"So what's in Colorado?"

"Tony, I've got to help him."

"There's no way you can get him out of Supermax. No one gets out of Supermax."

"I'm not going to help him escape." Chloe's voice took the tone she usually reserved for explaining the extremely obvious to the extremely stupid. "I need to talk to him."

"They won't even let you in. They're extremely strict on visitors. Only immediate family, lawyers, and clergy. You're a civilian now. You don't qualify."

"They'll let me in. I just helped save America, remember? America owes me a few favors and I'm going to call them in. I know what strings to pull. I'll get in."

"So why do you need to see Tony?"

"Because he's my friend."

That settled it as far as Morris was concerned. Chloe didn't have very many friends. She wasn't a very friendly person. But the loyalty she showed to the friends she did have bordered on the fanatical. Morris reached out and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "So how long will you be gone?"

Chloe squeezed his hand back. "As long as it takes."

Author's note: All my Chloe stories are tied together except for The Honeymoon which is kind of AU. You don't have to read them but I will occasionally make references to people and events that didn't happen in the show. Don't worry about it. Father Michael Petrowsky for example was first introduced in Bless Me Father.


	2. Hold Your Ground

**Blunt Tools **

**Chapter 2**

**Hold Your Ground**

The next morning, Chloe kissed Morris goodbye as he left for work. She then carefully packed one suitcase being sure to include a large, thickly stuffed manila envelope and collected Scottie to drop him off at daycare. Since she was presently unemployed her son was nearly her entire life and she hated to leave him. But now she felt she was needed. Not just by Tony but possibly in some weird way by Michelle and their unborn baby. She had always considered Tony as a friend until he started the whole murder and treason thing. His loss must have affected him far more than she imagined. Chloe wondered what she would do if her family was murdered like that. She wouldn't do what Tony did that's for sure. She would get a hold of Jack though. He owed her some favors and when they were teamed up they could be an unstoppable horror to anyone who crossed them.

Chloe didn't drive directly to Colorado but stopped by the church to visit Father Mike. "I'm going to Colorado!" she blurted out as he opened the rectory door. "I'm going to see Tony."

The priest nodded. "I see, you have chosen a difficult task. I will pray for your success."

"Gee! Thanks a lot but I'm going to need more than that! I don't know anything about this kind of thing." She wrung her hands. "I'm just not very good dealing with people. Computers are easy. It's all logic and rules. People are random. I'm not comfortable with people. I don't even know if the evil son of a bitch deserves the effort."

"Don't even think that! Everybody deserves the effort!"

"I'm not Billy Graham. I'm the last person who should be going. I don't think I can do this. Come with me."

Father Mike shook his head. "I think I would be more of a hinderance than a help. Tony has access to clergy. What he needs now is a friend who cares about him. Just be yourself and remember that nothing is impossible with God." He put his hand on her shoulder. "He may not be the man you know. He might say things that are hurtful to you. _Our battle is not against human forces but against the pricipalities and powers. The rulers of this world of darkness, the evil spirits in regions above. You must put on the armor of God if you are to resist on the evil day; do all that your duty requires and hold your ground."*_

Chloe took a deep breath and nodded. She then turned and walked out to her car. She had that familiar knot of fear in her stomach that she got whenever things started to go south at CTU. Whenever that happened people usually died. She'd spent her entire adult life trying to protect people and defend her country. Some of the things she'd done to do that might be considered illegal or immoral. Chloe had blood on her hands and not all of it came from the guilty. She wasn't a really nice person but Father Mike had repeatedly assured her that you don't have to be nice to be good. Now what was she doing? She wasn't a spiritual person and only a casual Christian at best. The idea that she could save Tony's soul was ridiculous. The thought that Michelle and her son were pushing her to do so was ludicrous. If she had any common sense she would drive straight home. But when she drove out of the parking lot she turned east toward Interstate 15 and started for Colorado.

Hours and hours later she parked in front of the Super 8 in Florence Colorado, got out and stretched. Chloe's whole body ached. She really hated driving. She especially hated driving long distances. As she pulled her suitcase out of her trunk she mentally cussed out Tony, Michelle, Tony Jr. and Father Mike Petrowsky for putting her in this situation in the first place. For good measure she cussed out Morris for not trying harder to talk her out of it. After checking in for a week she went to her room and plopped face down on the bed. She'll go see Tony tomorow.

The next morning she showed up at the ADX Supermax prison wearing a white blouse with a green skirt and flat heeled shoes. She didn't bother with her purse but did carry the thick manila envelope. She stopped at the pedestrian gate and pushed the buzzer.

"Control" came a tinny voice from the speaker.

"Chloe O'Brian!" The buzzer sounded as she opened the outer gate and went in. After another gate and a couple of doors she entered into the lobby where a man in a suit was waiting for her.

"Chloe O'Brian here to see Tony Almeda."

"Mrs O'Brian, my name is deputy warden Colbert. Visitation is normally reserved for immediate family, lawyers, and clergy. You fit none of those catagories yet I have an e-mail here from the Attorney General of the United States ordering me to give you full access to Inmate Almeda. You seem to have some high powered connections. Will you please explain to me what this is all about?"

"No, I would like a small visitation room set aside for us and I would like to see him as soon as possible."

"Very well, please put all metal items into this bowl and step through the metal detector."

Chloe was expecting this so she wore no jewelry except for her wedding ring and had no metal on her except for her car keys. She passed though the metal detector with no trouble, showed her ID and gave the drug dog a friendly scratch behind the ears. Then she was led to the visitation room. At least this place had better security than CTU ever did.

The two correctional officers opened the door to 'The Ghost's' cell. "Almeda! You've got a visitor! Her name's Chloe O'Brian!"

The man sitting in the cell didn't move a muscle. He didn't even blink.

"So are you coming!?"

The 'Ghost' slowly shook his head.

"So what do we tell her!?"

The Ghost spoke his first words in months The voice was dry and raspy. "Tell her I'm busy."

The guard opened the door to the visitation room. "Ma'm, he won't come. He says he's busy."

Chloe's eyes narrowed, her jaw set. "I'm sorry, I didn't know his social schedule was so full." She said with a sarcastic tone. "I'll just stay here until he's not so busy."

The guard shook his head. "Sorry ma'm we can't force an inmate to meet a visitor against his will."

Chloe's reply was curt. "Not your fault."

Chloe sat in the hard plastic chair all day bored out of her mind. About five p.m. a guard came in with a plastic tray of food. "We thought you might want some supper ma'm."

Chloe nodded and smiled. "Thank you." Supper consisted of spagetti with meat sauce, some green beans, garlic toast and some jello with a plastic cup of overly sweet grape Kool-Aid. The same food the inmates ate. Eating spagetti with the plastic spork was difficult. A combination spoon and fork and piss poor example of each. After her meal she kept sitting in the chair. About 9 PM a guard opened the door.

"I don't think he's coming. Want to try again tomorrow?"

Chloe shook her head. "No, I'm staying here until he sees me."

After the guard left she leaned forward across the table resting her head in her arms and fell asleep.

The next morning she got up and stretched. There were two small restrooms attached to the visitation room one for visitors and another for inmates. She stepped into the visitors restroom, took off her blouse, and took a bird bath in the sink cleaning up as well as she could with liquid hand soap and paper towels. After her bath another guard brought in a tray with a french toast breakfast and a plastic cup of milk.

The two correctional officers returned to Almeda's cell. "Chloe O'Brian still wants to see you."

Almeda glared at them. "I'm still busy."

A guard entered the visitation room. "Sorry ma'm, Almeda still doesn't want to see you."

"Then I'll just stay until he does."

Chloe spent another day of mind crushing boredom sitting in the visitation room. The tedium broken only by the meal breaks. Then another long night sleeping with her head on the desk and another bird bath in the sink.

On the third day the two officers again opened Almeda's cell door. "Chloe O'Brian's still here. She still wants to see you."

Tony was getting irritated. "How long is she going to keep coming back?"

"She never left. She hasn't left the visitation room in three days."

A slight twitch at the corner of the Ghost's mouth like a smile trying to force itself out. Chloe was stubborn if nothing else. Might as well get this over with. "Alright, I'll go see her."

Chloe glanced up as Tony was led into the visitation room. He had on handcuffs shackled to a belly chain and leg shackles. The restraints forced him to take short steps as he walked to the chair. She looked at the guard. "Are all the restraints necessary?"

"Yes, they are."

Chloe had no trace of make up left. Her white blouse had some small smudges and stains and her hair was still wet from trying to wash it in the bathroom sink with hand soap. . Tony sat down across from her and grinned. "You look like crap, Chloe."

"You're kind of pale yourself, Tony. Maybe you should get out more. Get a little sun. Maybe a couple of days at the beach." She looked at the guard standing in the corner. "Can we have a little privacy?"

"I'm afraid not," he replied.

"Let's cut the crap!" Tony declared. "Why are you here? Let me guess. President Taylor has some top secret suicide mission for the unlikely event I survive, I get a full pardon. Right?"

Chloe rolled her eyes. "Tony, you've seen way too many crappy movies. No, there's no secret mission. No, you're not getting out of here. I wouldn't let you out if I could. Frankly, you deserve to be here. For all the things you did, the people you murdered, you deserve to spend the rest of your life here. You deserve all the bad things that are going to happen to you for the rest of your life. Your going to die in here. An old man shackled to a hospital bed with tubes up his nose. I'm not here about getting you out of prison."

Tony shook his head. "I wouldn't escape if I could. I have nowhere to go. So why are you here?"

***Ephesians Chapter 6 verses 12, 13**


	3. The Coward

**Blunt Tools**

**Chapter 3**

**The Coward**

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"We need to talk, Tony."

Tony leaned back in his chair and smirked, "The time has come the walrus said, to talk of many things. Of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and of kings. And why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings."

He could still quote Lewis Carroll, Chloe took that as a hopeful sign. "No, we need to talk about you. What are you going to do for the rest of your life?"

Tony grinned. "You said it yourself, I'm going to sit in this shithole for another thirty or forty years then die an old man chained to a hospital bed."

"You murdered eleven FBI agents, don't you feel any remorse?"

Tony shook his head, "No, they were collateral damage, we get them in every war. Drop a bomb to kill the bad guys. Sometimes it falls in the wrong place and you get your own guys. I'd rather I didn't have to kill them but I'm not losing any sleep over it."

"It wasn't an accident, it was deliberate. They had families."

Tony leaned forward. "I had a family!" he shouted. "Me, Michelle, our baby! We were happy! Wilson took all of that away from me! He was going to keep destroying families until he was stopped!" He relaxed and gave Chloe a tight lipped smile. "Are you really happy Chloe? You just think you're happy. You've finally found a man who's willing to put up with your bipolar, aspie bullshit and you think you're happy. You've got a son. But you're really in love with Jack. Everyone at CTU knew about it. Everybody but Jack that is."

Tony noticed Chloe's face turning red and gave her a sly grin. "Morris is such a weak, cowardly little man isn't he? Don't bother trying to deny it. He doesn't really deserve you. Nothing at all like Jack. You don't really love him. You just remarried him because your biological clock was winding down. You were afraid your ovaries were going stale. Does Morris know about Jack? At night when he's making love to you does he know you're really thinking about Jack? Does he know that you dream about Jack? That every day you betray him with your thoughts?"

Chloe's lips tighted with anger as she glanced at the correctional officer who was pretending not to listen. Her fingernails were digging into her palms. "Don't pretend to know anything about me or my family! You have no idea what I'm thinking!" her tone was curt.

Tony kept on. "You're going to lose everything. Nobody at CTU ever lives happily ever after. Not Jack, not me, not you. You have a sense of duty, a need to protect people. Just like Michelle and I had. They'll keep pulling you back time and again until you lose everything. Either death or exile. You'll never see your son grow up. You'll never see your grandchildren. You'll never be happy. They'll chew you up like a stick of gum and spit you out when they're done. Deep down inside you know it's true."

Chloe stared at him silently. Everything he said was true. She'd known it for years, tried to deny it. Nobody ever escaped from CTU. Sooner or later the odds would catch up to her. She took a deep breath. "My, you really are an evil bastard aren't you? Yeah, it sucks to be me. I chose this life, I know the odds, I know the consequences. I accept them.

"Yeah, you're a real girl scout."

"I'm anything but." She glanced at the manila folder. "But enough about me. What about you Tony? Do you believe in God?"

"Does it matter? A loving God wouldn't allow the things that I've seen."

"You're acting like God is just a bigger version of you. You just can't think outside of the box. God loves us in an infinite way. But he doesn't force us to do anything. So what if you're wrong? What if there is a God?"

"Then I'm going to Hell." He grinned, "I'm not afraid. Some of us are more comfortable in Hell."

"You're a coward, I thought you might be. Now you've proven it."

Tony's face darkened with anger. "I'm no coward!"

"No? You just said you're going to Hell. That's the easy way out! Do you really think Michelle is in Hell? You're not afraid to face God! You'll spit in his eye and laugh! But you are afraid to face Michelle. She was a good woman, a patriot, a hero! You don't want her to see you the way you are now. A traitor, a murderer, a terrorist. A man eaten away by hate. Everything she spent her entire life fighting against. For you, facing her and your son would be the real Hell. You're abandoning your family! What kind of husband and father are you?"

"Everything I did, I did for her and our son!"

"Everything you did you did for yourself! For revenge! You dragged me, Jack, and Bill with you into your little fantasy!"

"It was the only way to stop Wilson!"

"No it wasn't, all you had to do was trust us. We're the best in the world at what we do. We would have come up with something. It didn't have to end this way." Chloe opened up the manila envelope and pulled some pictures out spreading them out across the table. Tony looked down at the glossy photos of men, women, and children.

"These are the people you murdered. The families you destroyed. The children who lost a mother or a father. You will spend the rest of your life locked in here because of what you've done."

Tony looked down at the photos. "What I've done is unforgiveable. So why are you here? To remind me that I'm damned to Hell? To tell me Michelle is up in Heaven despising me?"

Chloe reached into the folder and pulled out eight more photos which she also spread out on the table. One photo had a very young boy holding an even smaller toddler in his lap. The little girl was clutching an Elmo doll. Chloe gently touched the photo as warm tears trickled down her cheeks. "These are the innocent civilians I murdered in England. There was a very large terrorist truck bomb. I had a choice of detonating it in the country with just a few people around or letting it drive into some city and kill hundreds. I knew there were civilians down there but I set it off anyway. Couldn't let it get into town could I? It's just the cruel mathmatics of what we do." She slid the photo across to Tony. "Ann Carlson was fifteen months old. I burned her alive strapped in her baby seat. Her brother, Louis, was eight. I blew him to pieces. I killed six other people too. The British covered it all up. If you're damned to Hell then so am I."

Tony shook his head, "I'm so sorry Chloe."

"I'm going to have to live with this for the rest of my life, just like you're going to have to live with what you've done for the rest of your life. But it doesn't have to end this way. We can be forgiven. God has infinite love and infinite forgivness. Michelle loves you and she can forgive too. Jesus paid the price. We just have to accept him."

Tony shook his head. "I don't know if I can."

"You just have to take the first step, then another, then another. Talk to the chaplain, confess your sins. Feel remorse. You and Michelle can be together forever. Love is eternal."

Tony bowed his head, "I'm sorry Chloe, I'm so sorry. Thank you for coming out here for me."

"I love you Tony, you're my friend. I couldn't do anything else. It will be hard but you can do it."

Tony rose from his seat. His shackles clinked and jingled as he walked to the door. The correctional officer buzzed it open and Chloe watched him leave. She then gathered up the photos and walked out of the small room.

Outside of Time

The young boy was staring intensly into the pond. The image showed a dark haired man kneeling in his cell weeping. "Is father coming now?"

The beautiful young woman pulled him into her lap. "He still has a long journey ahead of him. The suffering caused by walls and chains is nothing compared to the suffering caused by remorse. The road is narrow and rocky but now he is on the right road. If he keeps on it he will come here eventually and will be greeted with joy."

The boy clapped his hands and laughed joyfully.

Los Angeles

Chloe sat up suddenly. Another weird dream about Michelle and the kid. Morris stirred next to her. The bedroom was filled with cardboard boxes. This would be their last night here in Los Angeles. Tomorrow they'll be going to New York. CTU was being reactivated and she was transfering to the New York office. Chloe looked down at Morris who was blinking sleepily at her.

"Chloe, are you alright?" he softly mumbled.

"Morris, I love you, no matter what you might think or what anybody else has to say, I love you."

She was answered by a soft snoring. Chloe lay next to him with a slight smile. Somehow the Universe seemed just a little bit better.


End file.
